Just before the 1987 General Election, then Labour leader Neil Kinnock made a telling and prescient intervention, one that stands repetition this morning. “If Margaret Thatcher wins on Thursday, I warn you not to be ordinary. I warn you not to be young. I warn you not to fall ill, and I warn you not to grow old”. Change Mrs T’s name for that of alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, and the warning stands once more.
Labour put a manifesto of real hope before the British people. But, in the misplaced belief that Brexit had somehow to be done, and the yet further misplaced belief that Jeremy Corbyn was the face of evil incarnate, many voters, perhaps also swayed by the incessant propagandising of rich and intolerant press barons, voted for a party led by a congenital liar who has betrayed all who ever put their trust in him.
Bozo The Clown has assured us that he will repay the trust of voters. He stands before a podium that declares “The Peoples’ Government”. Both claims are obscenely fraudulent: the only people in whose interests the Tories will govern are the rich and greedy. The vast majority of those who placed their cross next to The Blue Team’s candidates are as so many useful idiots, voting for their country to be systematically ransacked.
Poverty, already at levels which would shame any Government that had any, will only increase. Homelessness will worsen; we will have to get used to shop doorways, subways, park benches and the undersides of road bridges becoming temporary shelters for those who have fallen to the bottom of the pile, those who may be in regular work, but who have no place to call home. Our health service will now face a fresh assault.
Seriously ill people sleeping on floors? With Bozo in charge, they may be lucky to get in the door at A+E. Life expectancy will worsen, waiting times to deal with serious illnesses and life-threatening conditions will lengthen. The “40 new hospitals” will fail to materialise. But, like all those overpaid, leering columnists, you can always go private.
The education system will be placed under yet further strain. Sure Start will become a distant memory. Yet more children will arrive at school hungry, their parents going to work even hungrier. But Bozo and his boosters will not want for food and drink; for them, the world will remain excellent, insulated from the ghastly 95% they just conned rotten.
As to Brexit, the idea that Bozo will get it done is the biggest con of all. Businesses are already urging the Tories to secure the terms of our future trading relationship with what will be the EU27. Those negotiations will take many months, indeed years, and if there is any sign of significant disruption, businesses will begin the process of moving to mainland Europe what they can. The remnants of our manufacturing base will be up for grabs.
All those EU nationals might just stop and think that perhaps many of them would be best served leaving, too. Why remain in a country whose Government openly hates you? And for those non-EU migrants, well, the realisation will soon hit home that, when the mood turns nasty, the Tories will need someone to blame - no need to guess who that will be.
And to cap it all, the breakup of the Union may soon be upon us, with Scotland going its own way after more than 300 years. Northern Ireland may also break away from the UK. But this will, in the retelling, be a triumph for Bozo, so that’s all right, then.
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14 comments:
Not unexpectedly, Turkeys have voted for Christmas.
Umberto Eco's well-defined urfascism has finally arrived in Britain.
This was a dreadful, shameful result for the country - or what remains of it. Eyes wide shut is the only applicable description.
Still, it's not a hung Parliament. Which means the tories and their ilk will eventually be held wholly accountable for their wickedness.
The tragedy is this will cost tens of thousands of lives in an intensification of the socioeconomic massacre which began in 1979. There is a far right growing Evil Empire thieving its way across Europe and the USA.
After Bozo saying that European citizens had been able to treat the UK as if it’s part of their own country for too long, expect a sudden jump in hate crimes against them. As happened after the referendum.
Dear Zelo ,
Thank you for your regular blog articles . I’m afraid that the circumstances are just as you describe . As an OAP and given the failure of the ‘debt economy’ since the ‘credit crunch’ of 2008 , I will watch with morbid curiosity the latest moves by the neo-liberal establishment to regenerate growth . I suspect that the ‘wipeout’ of the Labour ‘red wall’ is delayed payback for the ‘triangulation’ of the Blair-Brown years and so part of the disappearance of the European Social Democrats in general . Let’s pray that ultimate resolution comes about less painfully than through another major War/Depression . However the experience of the 20C does not entirely give you confidence about that ,
Derek
"Still, it's not a hung Parliament. Which means the tories and their ilk will eventually be held wholly accountable for their wickedness."
Sorry but this is incorrect, they have 5 years to create or recycle another scapegoat to blame for their own greed and failure.
How nice to be in England
Now that Bozo's here
I stand in my wheelbarrow
And pretend I'm Boadicea
Kinnock's statement was before the 1983 general election.
Of one thing you can be absolutely sure: When it eventually dawns what appalling social damage has been wrought, far right Corporate media and their propaganda clerks and Uriah Heeps will never question their role in this catastrophe. Nor will they ever apologise for the disgusting lying smears they levelled against the good and honourable man that is Jeremy Corbyn.
On the contrary, for example last night on the BBC - where else - far right Neil "hosted" Alastair "Dodgy Dossier War Criminal" Campbell and primed him with how Labour "...could return to the Social Democrat wing." That's the gang of "Social Democrats" who helped inflict war, death and destruction on other nations, intensified the thievery of PFI, failed to reverse deliberate social divisions, "lost" Scotland (potentially Wales too), ignored warning signs of the 2008 Depression, and intensified sale of the NHS. Then John "Three Time Loser" McTernan dragged his slime trail onto Al Jazeera to peddle the same lying bullshit. There will be more of that kind of disgusting garbage in coming weeks. The aim will be to stifle any radical opposition.
In that respect, I warned months ago of a looming "Sir" Keir Starmer. Keep your eye on his political behaviour, who he consorts with, what he says, and what policies he proposes. I wouldn't trust him an inch until he proves otherwise. There is still a rump of Bliaristas in the PLP, but they are increasingly alienated from the membership.
The Labour Party is the last remaining hope for restoring political decency in this country. As Harold Wilson once said, "Labour is a moral crusade or it is nothing." It is as necessary now as it has always been, perhaps more so. Which is why the Establishment want to destroy it. Johnson's own immorality and institutional corruption shows precisely why.
The REAL work of resistance starts NOW.
To 12:04.
It is not "incorrect".
There's nothing new about tory scapegoating. 'Twas ever thus.
But every now and then people get sick of it and action accordingly.
In five years time there will be no improvement across the North and Midlands. All the far right propaganda in the world will be unable to stop the reaction when enough people realise they have been duped and lied to.
Current mendacity won't be "successful" forever. It only seems like it.
Agreed. They've managed to find someone else to blame pretty much every time for the past decade. No reason to think they'll stop now.
This work Christmas party I'm about to go on is going to be very depressing.
What a disaster -- to think those in very vulnerable constituencies like Redcar who saw the steel works close under this party yet vote for them!!!
This will take over a decade to change by which time we will be paying for everything from healthcare, education and social care.
What on earth made these people vote for their own destruction??
I fear the turkeys voting for christmas is too mild. The age of greed and money money money has arrived.
"Arnold said...
After Bozo saying that European citizens had been able to treat the UK as if it’s part of their own country for too long, expect a sudden jump in hate crimes against them. As happened after the referendum."
There's bound to be hate crimes against various EU groups in the UK and moist certainly minority groups. I hope Britain's Jewish community is prepared for a step up in antisemitic attacks. Of all minority groups in the UK they have been fairy insular and sort of under the radar for their existence. Whist antisemitism has been on the rise (everywhere)it's rarely been personal in the UK, more the tiresome Holocaust Denial, George Soros & Jewish banker rubbish etc but not actual attacks in the street.
But now they have allowed a handful of alleged community "leaders" and the Chief Rabbi (and I don't know how they could have stopped this with the media echo chamber)to proclaim that the entire Jewish community thinks as one and that they are wedded to one political party.
Bizarrely, they would have fared much better under a Corbyn and Labour government but now having put their heads above the parapet, racists everywhere are now alert to them.
I would really like to think you're right but in 2010 the financial insolvency crisis was pinned on the unemployed and disabled, then in 2016 EU free movement was too blame for the austerity they inflicted on the aforementioned disabled and unemployed. Maybe I'm depressed because I've just witnessed a lying, racist, philandering coward get a thumping majority for being a lying, racist, philandering coward but I can't help but think they are already working on who the fall guy is going to be in 5 years time.
I would've loved to read eco's take on the anti Semitic stuff.
The scores of halfwits in my neck of the woods who voted Tory for the first time are ripe for incorporation into some version of a UK tea party movement. this can be evidenced by some of the crazy suit they post online. In essence they now believe that voting labour equates to being in favour of peodophiles and to being a traitor. There is even an organisation operating out of a premises in Rochdale town centre called parents against grooming. They actively incite and smear the local labour party and even disrupted a local hustings event that had to be cancelled due to their intimidation and disruption. This was the first time I have witnessed political intimidation on the streets of my town
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